Monday, July 11, 2016

Signs of life on v1403, v1442 and mirror CES - plenty of testing and debugging

SAC INTERFACE FOR ADDING PERIPHERALS TO THE 1130


Restructuring the GUI

-- virtual 1442 --

I decided to try a very bold test first, loading a standalone diagnostic deck with an initial 1442 boot card. I pushed the Boot button on my GUI but had a code failure in the logic to content with. I power cycled everything

A second test did execute the boot function, begin executing the code and read a second card from the 1442. Unfortunately, it hung up at that point and the transactional link became unresponsive. Diagnostic LEDs and messages needed.

Just after dinner, I ran the tests with the diagnostic stuff I added. In addition, I began with some CE hand code to test the card reader, before trying to boot the 1442 diagnostics.  I found that the FPGA was stalling at the ARM step of the main 1442 state machine, where it should be triggering the 80 column interrupts to cause reading to occur. I added another diagnostic and went back out to test again.

I had a different type of error this time, but the diagnostics I had set up were not helpful. Working out a better test plan.

-- virtual 2310 --

I loaded the 2310B disk diagnostics into core and tried to get the virtual drive exercised, but I wasn't successful on the first go. Better diagnostic LEDs and messages needed.

-- virtual 1403 --

It kind of works - as far as print and space operations - but the output was a bit garbled. This needs some diagnostic tracing and more careful work.

-- mirror console entry (bit) switches --

The code correctly caught the XIO Read for the console entry switches, but a Python code flaw blocked the update of my image window. Once I adjusted the code it should work - testing to verify.

-- real 1627 activation --

My first test of the activation function, which should set a flag to allow the 1627 to be used or not, completed transactions to the FPGA. My diagnostic LEDs weren't properly set up so I couldn't observe the state change, but that will take place tomorrow after I chase down the 1442 and 2310 issues.

-- real 1134 and 1055 activation --

My first test of the activation function, which should set a flag to allow the 1134 and 1055 to be used or not, completed transactions to the FPGA. My diagnostic LEDs weren't properly set up so I couldn't observe the state change, but that will take place tomorrow.


OTHER VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES

I acted as a Volunteer Examiner for an exam session at the end of a ham radio training course - took about three hours all together including travel. I do this regularly on alternating Saturday mornings at the Saratoga Firehouse, but will also help out where I can at special sessions. 

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